


at last (my love has come along)

by sk4di



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: F/F, Harry Potter AU, I write chaubrey to 4 people and I think that's beautiful, Wizarding World AU, and mitchsen is the superior friendship if you disagree you are wrong, give these two more attention (and fics), no-maj!chloe, what do I had to do to make y'all realize this is a good pairing, witch!aubrey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-08-08 19:48:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16435715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sk4di/pseuds/sk4di
Summary: Aubrey is a witch with a new neighbor.





	1. screwdriver

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I'm the same sk4di from fanfiction.net. Since chaubrey fandom is so small, I thought that it would be good to start posting here too, in case there's interested readers around.  
> Anyway, I wrote this because Halloween is aroung the corner and I always try to write for holidays.  
> I hope you enjoy this one!

“You will feel better after this,” Aubrey told her friend.

“I hope so. I feel like shit. That syrup I had yesterday was useless,” Beca murmured without looking up from the book in front of her. She was sitting by the kitchen island wrapped in the thick blanket that usually stays draped over the back of Aubrey’s couch. “Can you make this one?” She pointed to the open page, sniffing.

Aubrey turned to her friend and stretched her neck to see to what she was referring to. “I can, actually.” She turned back to the small cauldron and checked the texture of the liquid in it.

“Damn,” Beca exclaimed. “Can you give me this for my birthday? I'd love to be Beyoncé for a day.”

“Polyjuice Potion requires a piece of the individual you want to impersonate. Like a strand of hair.” Aubrey informed, stopping stirring the potion in front of her. “Where would find a strand of Beyonce’s hair?”

Beca shrugged. “I can buy it on eBay.” She frowned before turning the page. “Better not. I don’t trust eBay.”

The blonde grinned, adding the bicorn horn into the cauldron. “But you trust a witch.”

“With my very life. I think I’m going to cancel my health insurance. I have you,” Beca said.

“Health-wise I’m limited to simple potions. Don’t do that,” Aubrey chided.

The brunette smirked and kept turning the pages from Aubrey’s old potion book.  “I really think I would’ve had liked school way more if I had gone to a wizard’s one.”

Aubrey smirked and was about to mention how Beca wouldn’t probably survive a day in Ilvermorny without her precious laptop and headphones when they heard a knock on the door. Her eyes grew wide as she turned to search for Beca’s own.

“Fuck,” Beca cursed slowly. “Are you expecting somebody?”

Aubrey shook her head. They stared at each other in a near panicked way.

It’s not like her apartment looked magic or anything like a place a witch would live in, - it has good lightning, nice furniture and there isn’t bats in a corner – but its’s also not a place no-maj people should be in. For example, Beca and she were in the kitchen with bicorn horns and Mandrake roots on the balcony and a fucking copper cauldron on her cooktop. Some of the books on the shelves, to anyone else, could look like normal ones even if they taught about witchcraft’s history, the making of potions, casting spells, wizard’s gastronomy and, most of them, herbology – Aubrey’s specialty. In her fridge, ingredients and potions stocked in Tupperwares and Mason jars shared space with her food. In the closet in her room, you could find the broom she used to play quidditch as a goalkeeper in school. But still, she needed previous warning if a no-maj person outside from her family was coming over.

(Beca was an exception.

They were roommates at the college Aubrey’s father insisted she had to attend after her years in Ilvermorny so she could adapt into the “normal world”. It came to a point that the weird stuff Aubrey brought to their dorm could not pass anymore as acceptable, not even if she was a Chemical Biology major.

“Oh my God, what is this?” Beca asked, widening her eyes.

“I’m a witch, Beca,” Aubrey said, with her trembling hands, one holding a Mason jar full of rose thorns and the other wielding her wand behind her back, ready to obliviate the girl if things went wrong.

Beca blinked once. “I know that. I’m offended you think I’m dumb enough to not notice.” She walked to Aubrey – who was speechless by surprise and relief - and took the horns in her hand. “I’m asking about what are those? I don’t recall seeing my grandmother use anything like this in her potions.”

It was pure destiny the fact that Beca, even having a grandmother who was a witch, wasn’t one herself but that Aubrey – the girl born in the most no-maj family in America - was.)

“We can pretend we are not here,” Beca hushed and Aubrey nodded.

The knock on the door continued. Whoever they were, they shouldn’t see what was going on in Aubrey’s kitchen. That’s one of the lows of living in a no-maj neighbor when you are a witch.

The witch was stirring the near finished potion in her cauldron as quietly as possible when Beca sneezed loudly, ruining their plan of ignoring the person on the door until they decided to leave.

“I hate you so much,” Aubrey told her Beca who looked at her apologetically. She enchanted the spoon to keep stirring and the kitchen to smell differently from Pepperup Potion. “Keep an eye on this, I’ll be back soon.”

She checked her clothes and hair at the mirror near the door. Good thing she managed to not get dirty all over her white sweater or jeans – Mandrake roots can be so tricky. She removed a lost leaf from her messy bun, tucked her wand in her jeans’ back pocket and opened the door, putting her body in a way that was not possible to see much of the inside of her apartment.

“Hi, I hope I’m not bothering you, I live across the hall and I was wondering if you have a screwdriver to lend me?” the woman on Aubrey’s doorstep asked friendly.

The woman had the bluest eyes Aubrey had ever saw. Her hair was thick and trapped in a high ponytail and in a bright orange color that reminded Aubrey of fire.

Aubrey felt sorry she was not a normal human. If she was, she probably would have a screwdriver at home and not use a magic wand as a tool for everything - she proudly put together her Ikea bookshelf with a few waves of her wand. For what screwdrivers were used anyway?

“I didn’t know that apartment was occupied,” Aubrey observed, looking through the woman and the door open across the hallway with two piles of boxes in the threshold.

The woman followed Aubrey’s eyes. “Oh, yes, it wasn’t. I just moved here, as you can see,” She said in her happy-go-lucky voice. “I’m Chloe, by the way.” Chloe extended a hand.

“I’m Aubrey.” The witch took the hand extended to her in a handshake.

“Nice to meet you, Aubrey. Your hands are really warm.” Chloe took her hand back, smiling, which made Aubrey smile too.

“Sorry, I was-“ Aubrey ran her mind as quickly as possible for a action that wasn’t ‘making my friend a potion to cure her cold'. “-cooking. I was cooking.”

“That’s nice,” Chloe said, and silence settled between them for a moment in which Aubrey felt slightly amused with the blue of the woman’s eyes – it was too similar to the crystal she kept in her keychain as an amulet. “So, do you have it?”

“Have what?” Aubrey asked back, with a confused face.

Chloe laughed. “The screwdriver,” she said, biting her lip.

“I don’t. I’m sorry,” Aubrey lamented. If only Chloe had asked if she had orchid's petals or pearl dust…

“That’s fine,” Chloe said. “Thank you, Aubrey.” The redhead was about to walk back to her apartment when Beca stuck her head in the small space between Aubrey’s body and the door.

“Is everything alright here?” Beca asked, spotting the stranger.

“Hi. I’m Chloe,” the redhead presented herself again.

“I’m Beca,” The brunette said in her nasal congestion voice before she sneezed again. “And I have a cold,” she laughed dryly.

“And I’m moving in,” Chloe said, smiling, seeming pleased with the small talk.

“On your own?” Beca asked and Chloe nodded.

Aubrey stood there awkwardly, looking at Chloe with Beca’s head under her arm, thinking about elbowing her back into the kitchen to keep an eye on the potion. “Chloe needs a screwdriver, but I don’t have one.”

“I see,” Beca turned her head up to her friend. “I just came here to tell you that the…the-“ she struggled, as the bad liar she was.

“Soup,” Aubrey completed her friend before she said something that would be suspicious. “The soup is bubbling?” Beca nodded. “Well, can you turn the fire off?” Aubrey asked and Beca ran back into her apartment.

Chloe thanked her again and walked back to her own apartment. Aubrey watched her for a second or two. It felt wrong to let Chloe with no help, with no one to help her put the boxes inside and with no screwdriver. She unenthusiastically closed her door and went back to her kitchen.

Beca was watching the cauldron with a curious look. Aubrey checked that the color was alright, the density seemed fine and, as she undid the spell, she discovered the smell was just fine too. By tomorrow, Beca would wake up cured from her cold. That’s why she loved magic. There were few things in the world that magic could not fix. She passed her friend a mug with the potion in it.

The brunette took it in her hands, sniffing the smell. “She is really moving in on her own, that’s tough.”

Aubrey looked at her friend, a little surprised that she wasn’t the only one thinking about the neighbor. “I moved here on my own.”

“You have a fucking magic wand,” Beca exclaimed. “And it’s not the sex toy, it’s like, the real thing.” She brought the mug to her face, sniffing the potion again.

“Just drink it,” Aubrey rolled her eyes and said.

The brunette slowly put the mug on top of the kitchen island.

“Come on, it’s a really simple potion, you will be fine,” she tried to reassure her friend.

Beca sneezed and looked at her friend from across the kitchen island. “Can’t you conjure a screwdriver?”

“Conjuring is not my thing,” Aubrey sighed.

“Accio?”

“That would be stealing.”

“Transfiguring?”

Aubrey sighed. She could remember that B in Transfiguration ruining her perfect As.

But she does have a book somewhere. The blonde got up from the stool and flew off to her bookshelf. She came back in seconds with a few volumes, thick and old ones. She opened them and started looking for something, while Beca started sipping her potion.

She ran her fingers through the text and images in the book and paid attention to the post-its added by a much younger Aubrey no the page. (Aubrey is not one to brag, but she turned stationery into a thing during her years in Ilvermorny. Her Horned Serpent housemates from born in pure-blood families had never seen such a thing. She would ask William, her older brother to send her boxes of ballpoint pens, post-its and highlighters and she would resell them to the other students. Soon, the entire school was making use of her products. Aubrey brought some kind of progress to them – and, with the money, some books, herbs and equipment to herself.)

With a quick movement, Aubrey picked up a sharp knife from a set Beca gave her for Christmas (“Why do wizards celebrate Christmas? Was Jesus one of you guys?”) from one of the kitchen’s drawer and placed it in front of her, on top of the cold surface.

Beca eyed it with an apprehensive expression and took her mug in her hands, taking a step back. Seeing Aubrey use her magic was always a thrill. Specially if her friend was looking at the task in a way that made clear that that was out of her league. And yet she was trying.

It took six attempts to turn the bread knife into a screwdriver. It was silver with a red handle, just like the knife was. It looked a little different from a normal screwdriver but neither of them knew exactly how. It was just different. Its handle still looked too much like a knife’s one.

Aubrey shoved her wand in her jeans’ waistband and took the tool as she went out of the apartment, knocking on the threshold of Chloe’s open door.

The new neighbor was so thankful that Aubrey had found one for her and was even more thankful when Beca joined them soon after and they all ended up helping with moving boxes and furniture around.

Aubrey was slightly enchanted by who Chloe was. By the way she talked about her life like they were old friends and the way she was allowing them inside her place and with her stuff was the opposite of what Aubrey had been doing all these years. Chloe almost made her wonder if she was doing right shutting the world off like that.

They listened intently as Chloe told them she was moving in because she got a job at a vet clinic nearby. It was her first job after vet school and she was excited to start to take care of cats, dogs and birds.

(Aubrey only reluctantly used owls to send letter in Ilvermorny because cellphones were not a thing there. Sometimes one of her magical friends would still send her letter by their owls even if she lived in a big city full of no-majs. Kate, one of her colleagues from the music club, would send Neva, a small white owl with serious problems in landing. She liked animals just the enough and couldn’t understand why someone would choose to spend their life surrounded by them.)

Beca shared with Chloe how she was a musical producer and they were all surprised when Chloe revealed herself to be a music enthusiastic too. She told them that as soon as she were settled down properly she would invite them over to dinner and to listen to her LP collection.

“What about you, Aubrey?” Chloe asked the blonde as she used the screwdriver to attach the last screw to keep her bed upright.

Aubrey handled the mattress on top of the bed. “I study plants.”

“Plants?” Chloe asked, raising an eyebrow in an amused face, making Aubrey smile.

“Yes,” Aubrey said. “To develop medicines, cosmetics, this kind of thing.”

Chloe pulled out some bed covers out of a box. “This is so interesting,” she commented. Aubrey joined her, helping her set the sheets on the bed and the pillows inside its cases. “You’re a scientist! Scientists are hot.”

What about witches? Aubrey thought dryly and ended up just laughing nervously. Was that a compliment?

They finished the bed and moved on to pilling up a few boxes with books in the corner of the bedroom. Chloe was chatting and making small conversation, trying to – and succeeding just enough – to take Aubrey out of her shell.

If Aubrey had been a little more attentive, she would know Chloe was flirting. Or if she wasn’t too caught up with the idea of what living like Chloe was like: free, no secrets, just someone normal. Her only no-maj friend was Beca, and the woman wasn’t exactly a master of social interactions. So maybe Chloe was too new, too different to be true.

It was past eleven when they realized that they had done all the work possible for that day.

“We should really order something to eat.” Beca said, looking a little healthier now. She had stopped sniffing and sneezing for a while now.

Chloe looked up from the paper box she was going through in the kitchen counter. “Weren’t you guys making soup-” She raised her hands to her mouth in a sudden shocked expression. “-Oh my God, Beca, your ears!”

Aubrey who was very engaged with the task of cleaning the windows like a no-maj, turned on her heels to see Beca steaming out of her ears.

Damn, that’s why she kept her life closed.

“Beca!” She growled. “The side-effect of the potion!”

Beca’s eyes grew wide as she quickly tried to cover her ears with her hands but retrieved them away when she felt the hotness of the steam.

 “Oh my God, what’s happening? Potion? Side-effect? What?” Chloe asked, looking back and forth between Aubrey and Beca with squinted eyes.

Aubrey stomped her feet on the floor. “Damn, Beca, why did you drink it?”

“Because you told me to!” Beca argued.

“Yeah, because I thought we wouldn’t be around anyone! You should’ve just stayed inside,” Aubrey chided, with her hands on her hips.

She barely registered that Chloe was standing there open-mouthed and taken aback by the argument, with doubt and confusion all over her face. Sweet Chloe, she did not have to deal with that kind of shit in her first day there.

“Quick, make her forget!” Beca fumed, pointing to Chloe.

“What? No!” Aubrey yelled.

“Aubrey, for God’s sakes, she saw it!”

“I didn’t saw anything! There’s no need to do whatever you are going to do to me, whatever this means!” Chloe pleaded, shaking her head. “I’m not going to tell anyone anything, I swear!”

Aubrey didn’t want to take orders from Beca but she knew her friend was right. It was the only reasonable thing to do. She could get in trouble for letting a no-maj she barely knew aware of their world. She turned to Chloe, pulling her wand out of her waistband and wielding it in Chloe’s direction.

“A stick? What the fuck is happening?” Chloe yelped, taking a few steps back, until her back hit her fridge.

The blonde came closer with a grim expression, sighing when she came to a stop. She did not want to do it. She hated the scared expression in her new neighbor’s face. Just when she thought she was properly bonding with the world.

“Don’t worry, this isn’t going to hurt,” she told Chloe. It really wasn’t. Chloe would barely feel a thing. Aubrey raised her wand as Chloe tried to mend with her cold surface of the fridge. “I’m sorry, Chloe,” she said before casting the spell. “I’m so sorry.”

And like that, the memories of that pleasant evening were never the same to Chloe.


	2. loving the neighbor

Chloe was so scared of the loneliness she would experience moving to a city in which she knew no one.

She was never the kind of girl who was alone, or good at it. There were always at least two or three girls around who she could call friends, often there was a boy that she could fool around with for a month or so before one of them got bored, and her parents were way too present. She never learned how to be alone, and she was sure she didn’t want to. There was nothing like people. Nothing like listening getting to know someone. Like learning about the little world everyone has inside.

When she decided to accept that job in a town she had never been before, that was her biggest fear: loneliness. But, for some strike of luck, she was gifted with company and kindness in her very first night in the city. She just wanted a screwdriver, she ended up with Chicago.

He was sweet enough. They would spend the nights together at her place talking very little and exploring each other’s bodies too much. He may not be a good friend, but he was very good at other things. That wasn’t the kind of company Chloe feared not having, but in the lack of any other, she accepted him in the best way she could or the way he would allow - she was not sure about which was the case.

There were no clues that that was the situation she was going to end up in. Or maybe they were there all the time and she was just victim of some spell. In that first night, she remembers vividly the way she could see him fight his own walls to keep a conversation with her. She remembers the shy blush on his cheeks as she thanked him for the screwdriver. She remembers how he looked at her: a little marveled, a little intrigued.

He doesn’t know exactly how to define the way he looks at her now. The lights are always off. She thinks she doesn’t really care anymore about what he thinks as long as his hands are in the right places, erasing her mind from this new kind of loneliness she was trapped in.

She cursed herself for expecting too much. If she hadn’t allowed herself to think that those were sparks, that those were signs of something great, she might as well be more acceptable about the way their relationship developed. She should’ve had learned that first meetings can be tricky; same mistakes all over again.

Maybe she had this self-critic in her mind when she saw her in that morning. Maybe that was the safety belt she was wearing when their worlds collapsed, when Chloe felt like she had been there before.

Four weeks had passed after the day she moved in when she saw her for the first time. When Chloe opened her door to go to work that morning, a blonde woman was on the threshold of the door of the apartment in front of her. She was wearing a navy-blue overcoat and had a messenger bag hanging on one shoulder. She was holding a keychain with a blue crystal hanging on it and going through her phone with the other hand. The door behind her was slightly open and she didn’t seem to notice that Chloe was watching her.

Chloe knew someone lived in that apartment, but she never saw them. Apparently, that was her front door neighbor and she was about her own age. Maybe that was what got Chloe dying to talk to her (the longest conversations she had since she got in the city were with pets. Her coworker and owner of the vet clinic she was working at was an old man that she tried to avoid even during her work hours). Maybe that blonde woman was a chance.

Though, in the moment Chloe opened her mouth to speak to the her, the elevator’s doors opened, and another woman got out of the elevator. She was a tiny brunette in combat boots, skinny jeans and a flannel under her heavy black coat, carrying a suitcase on her shoulder. Chloe just sighed and walked to the elevator. Next time, she decided.

“I have no idea what you did to your keys, but you better don’t lose these,” Chloe heard the blonde advice the other woman, handing her the keychain. “Why do you need to work here anyway?”

“It inspires me,” the brunette said, entering the apartment and closing the door behind her.

The blonde walked to the elevator without looking up from her phone and Chloe was caring enough to hold the door open for her. When she raised her head to thank Chloe, she had this very peculiar look on her face.

Looking closely, she confirmed that her neighbor was a beautiful woman. She was a long blonde hair that fell in waves on her shoulders and she looked like someone better. Better like one of those people who are always one step ahead of everyone, who are intriguing and who are invested in exceed at everything. Chloe noticed her pink lips had this almost-o shape and there was a slight, almost unnoticeable frown on her brows. Maybe she was just surprised to see a new person, Chloe thought.

The redhead tilted her head a little amused with the new attention. They had eleven floors together and there was no way Chloe could hold her tongue.

“Hi, I’m Chloe. I live in the apartment in front of yours,” the redhead chatted with the lighthearted voice tone, offering a hand to shake.

The blonde blinked twice before accepting Chloe’s handshake. “Aubrey.”

There was a tense energy in Aubrey. It was almost palpable. Not in a creepy way, though. Chloe just felt that Aubrey was taking that encounter in a different way than she was. She wasn’t going to judge, she was a little nervous herself.

Aubrey’s hands were warm even if autumn was fighting all the heat away. “Your hands are really warm, Aubrey,” Chloe said, trying to dissipate the thick air but she thinks she saw Aubrey blushing a little with the comment. “I live here for a few weeks now and it’s funny that we never saw each other.”

Aubrey hesitated before nodding. “I work a lot,” she said.

Chloe nodded understandingly. “What about your roommate?” she asked, referring to the brunette.

The blonde frowned slightly. “Oh, Beca? Beca is not my roommate. She is just a friend,” Aubrey clarified.

Chloe wanted to talk. Wanted to ask her about her job. Wanted to say her coat fitted her so well. That her hair had a beautiful color. That they should talk, befriend each other, because they were so near in a city where everyone was so far. She also wanted to understand why Aubrey seemed nervous, why she kept looking at Chloe through the corner of her eyes when she thought the redhead wasn’t noticing. She also wanted to know why she found herself wanting a few more floors.

Chloe was too absorbed paying attention to way Aubrey knuckles danced against her palm when the doors opened, and Aubrey practically ran away, with a short “bye” to her and an interrogation mark over Chloe’s head.

How could Aubrey look so familiar if she was sure they had never met before?

* * *

“Do you know Aubrey?” Chloe asked Chicago during a rare dinner together that night. She had insisted so much that she was sure that he agreed out of pity. Or hunger.

“Aubrey who?” He asked back, dipping a broccoli into the sauce.

“The neighbor from the apartment across the hall,” she explained, watching him dip a piece of carrot there too.

“Oh. Yeah,” he said, thoughtful. “She is a weirdo.”

Chloe frowned, pushing food around her plate with her fork. “A weirdo?”

He nodded. “She had an owl there once. What kind of person has an owl?”

Aubrey has an owl? Chloe was entertained with her neighbor’s choice of pet. Of course, she didn’t look like someone who would have a cat, or any pet at all. This is the kind of thing you learn when you are a veterinarian. People who have pets show it in some way. Like cat people always have cat hair on the end of the legs of their pants. Or like bird people occasionally have bite marks on their hands. And other than that, it just shows in their personalities, what Chloe is not able to explain. She just knows when someone had a dog or a lizard or a snake. So, she was intrigued about the thought of what led the woman to get an owl – she didn’t see that coming.

“Owls, if compared to other cases, are pretty normal,” she informed him. “I once heard of a guy who raised a baby crocodile on his tub.”

He shrugged. “She is still a weirdo. She only has one friend.”

“It’s hard to make friends,” Chloe said, putting a piece of chicken in her mouth.

Chicago raised his brows in that cute way. “I can’t believe you just said that. You look like those girls who are friends with everyone. You befriended me,” he said, playfully.

Chloe wanted to say that they weren’t exactly friends. There wasn’t a beautiful word to what they were doing. But she ignored him and decided to let him believe in that.

She chuckled. “I’m nice to people, that’s all. I like making people happy.”

“You do,” he said giving her a kind look. “You are good at it.”

Chloe smiled at him. His handsome face and kind eyes made his words seem way more meaningful than he probably meant initially.

She really wished she could be as enchanted with him as she was in that first evening. She wished that the sparks she felt had lasted. Sometimes it felt almost like it wasn’t the same person.

Feeling a little guilty with that thought, she leaned forward and kissed him, feeling his surprise. They could always stop seeing each other, of course, but he was the closest thing she had of a friend, she wasn’t ready to let it go, even if it was a selfish decision.

She pushed her thoughts aside with an idea.

“I should befriend her,” Chloe said as she pulled back. “I will befriend Aubrey. Wait and see.”

* * *

She knocked on Aubrey’s door in the next day after work. She had prepared some pumpkin bread to herself and decided it would be nice to share some of it with her neighbor/soon to be friend.

Though, Aubrey didn’t open the door. The tiny brunette did. Her eyes went wide, and her lips were shut tightly. She looked a little bit frightened.

Maybe Chicago was right, those people really were weirdos. First Aubrey’s tension in the elevator and now her friend looked like she was about to confess a crime. Chloe decided to ignore that and keep on with her project of loving the neighbor.

“Hi, I’m Chloe, is Aubrey home?”

The brunette opened her mouth to say something and then shut it again. She looked briefly at the inside of the apartment, that she exposed less, closing the door a little bit. “She isn’t. She’s working.”

“Oh. Can you tell her I passed by and left this?” Chloe asked, offering the bread for the woman to take.

“Sure,” she said, taking the plate from Chloe’s hands. She still seemed uncomfortable in her own skin. She was avoiding eye contact and fidgeting on the metal pieces in her ear.

“Alright,” Chloe concluded. “Thank you…” She waited for the brunette to offer a name. Wasn’t it something with B? Barb? Brenda?

“Rebeca,” she said in a rush. “No, I’m lying, it’s Beca. No one calls me Rebeca. My father used to but now he just goes for Beca. It’s shorter, it’s better and sounds way cooler, right? Becaw!” she was blushing by the end of her rant.

Chloe stared at her, amused. Total weirdo ahead. If befriending Aubrey meant that Beca was coming along, that was an extra that she wouldn’t mind. The more the merrier, she always said – about people and about pets.

“Okay. Thanks, Beca,” she said. “I hope you like pumpkin bread.”

Beca nodded and closed the door. Chloe decided to come back. She was never one to give up on the first try.

* * *

It took her three more attempts to see Aubrey.

In the second time, two days later, she knocked but no one came. Which was a shame, because she was sure that that carrot cake was the best she had ever made.

In the third time, in the following day, Beca was there again, seeming a little more at ease. She promised to give Aubrey the chocolate cupcakes and said they loved the pumpkin bread, what did put a smile in Chloe’s face. The progress was coming slowly, she thought.

In the fourth time, two days later, a Saturday, Aubrey was finally the one to open the door.

She was wearing a wine turtleneck – that looked surprisingly good in her - with blue jeans, barefoot and looking way different from what she looked like at the elevator in the beginning of the week. She kept the door open only enough for her body to lean against the door frame. Chloe felt like she had seen that image before, in a distant dream or an old movie.

“Hi, Aubrey,” Chloe greeted, smiling with her hands free of food.

“Hey, Chloe,” Aubrey greeted her with a sympathetic expression. “I didn’t have the chance to thank you for the food.”

Maybe she was just naturally uptight like that. Maybe her hands were always like that, never relaxing her fists completely. Maybe her browns were always slightly frowned. Chloe decided that there were people that lived worrying their lives away and maybe Aubrey was one of those.

“I made a pumpkin pie,” Chloe told her, giving her a smile. At that moment, she couldn’t know why, but there were very little things that would make her give up of befriending her neighbor.

“Oh,” Aubrey said, the corner of her lip tugging up, as if she knew what was about to happen. Her arms were crossed, and her sleeves were pulled up to her elbows.

“And what do you say about coming to my place and having a piece or two?” Chloe suggested, ready to beg if Aubrey said no.

But much to her surprise, Aubrey agreed after a second that seemed to be a small hesitation.

“Sure,” she said. “Why not?”


	3. coffee without confidence

“Please, can we stop avoiding her? These chocolate cupcakes are insanely good,” Beca said while chewing on one.

“If you like being alive you better stop spreading crunches all over my couch,” Aubrey threatened, kicking Beca’s feet from her coffee table and sitting beside her friend with two mugs of green tea with a dose of hope each, because it was a cold day and both of them could use some warmness coming from the inside.

“I mean, there’s no chance she remembers that night, right?” Beca asked, picking up her mug and resting her half-eaten cupcake on the plate with the others. She sipped her tea and made a face. “Is this love? I can never tell. They all feel the same sometimes.”

“It’s hope. Love is too hard to find,” Aubrey told her before sipping her own tea. “I’m sure she doesn’t remember that night. But memory charms can be tricky. They fool you, they do not erase the memory. I have no idea of what she believes that happened that night.”

Beca sipped her tea before finishing the rest of the cupcake with one bite. “Maybe she doesn’t remembers needing a screwdriver.”

The witch thought for a moment. “It’s a possibility,” she said. “Or maybe she believes the screwdriver was hers to begin with.” Aubrey picked up one of the cupcakes and gave it a bite. “This is good,” she said, slicing another cupcake in a half with another knife from the same set of the one that became the screwdriver that started the story.

“But she forgot you,” Beca said with her head hanging low.

Aubrey turned to her friend. “I was talking about the cupcake.”

“Oh,” the brunette frowned sympathetic. “I’m sorry,” she said, and Aubrey instantly knew it wasn’t about the misunderstanding.

“I told you to stop apologizing,” Aubrey said, touching her friend’s knee. “I’m the witch. I’m the one who should’ve had been extra careful.”

Beca gave her a downcast smile. “So, why do you think she is feeding you?”

“She is friendly,” Aubrey suggested. “She is probably feeding the entire floor.”

Beca ate one more cupcake in silence.

“I like her, she seems nice” Beca said, after a while. “And you like her too, I can see it in your face.”

Aubrey grinned weakly. She had no idea if Chloe had been on her mind since that night because of the mess of the situation or just because she liked Chloe.

Since that night, she couldn’t look down to the leaves that the autumn was bringing down to the ground of the city without thinking about Chloe’s hair. Or open her door without her keychain making her think about Chloe’s eyes. Or sit at home to give an article a much-needed reading without her mind playing Chloe’s voice telling her how scientists are hot.

What if Chloe was witch that was feeding her sweets with Amortentia, the love potion inside? That would explain her actual situation. (During her fifth year in Ilvermorny there was a massive use of them. It was impossible to create real love out of those things, but it was possible to create an unbearable infatuation. She was a victim once and when the effect was gone, her infatuation turned into hate and the poor boy ended up with a hiccup crisis.) Only this hypothesis didn’t explain why the thought of Chloe didn’t begin only after she ate that delicious pumpkin bread.

“Give her a chance,” Beca said, pulling Aubrey out of her own head.

“To what?” Aubrey asked. What was the point of letting people in if they could never understand who she was?

“To have her around,” the brunette said.

“There’s a list of one thousand reasons for me to not do that. It’s too complicated,” Aubrey confessed.

Beca seemed thoughtful for a few seconds. “Well, you can always do the thing again.”

Aubrey looked at her hating the idea of Chloe forgetting about her again.

“You like her,” Beca said again. “This is so rare that it should outweigh your thousand reasons. You don’t like anyone-”

“You know me so well.”

“-but you like her and there’s no way you are lying to me. You really should give yourself a chance, Aubrey. There’s two worlds out there, you have access to both and all you do is work and judge my life decisions.”

“At least I excel at both,” Aubrey smirked.

“Yeah, whatever, that tangerine shit is cool I guess,” Beca gave in.

Aubrey discovered, a couple years ago, new magic properties in leaves of tangerine trees that could help in treating chronic pains. She was then working in writing an article in no-maj scientific language that would fool the community into believing it was something they could have discovered through normal science. When finished she would only need the approve of the Magical Congress of The United States of America to publish it – they had done it before for other researches of the kind. She was sure she could help many people with her work and that kept her confidence alive.

“Just look around, okay?” Beca insisted. “You are a great person and deserves only the best. I bet I wouldn’t be the only one to see this if you could only give Chloe a chance.”

Aubrey looked at her friend coyly. Beca giving a pep talk happened once in each two years.

“Don’t look me like that,” the brunette said, dodging her eyes away from Aubrey’s. “I’m only saying that because you’ve cured my cold.”

“Not enough of a good excuse.”

“Then, this is the hope talking,” Beca tried again.

The witch laughed. Maybe she should have one or two doses more of hope while she waited for Chloe to knock on her door again.

* * *

When it happened, she was decided to not act like a fool. And this is how she ended up in Chloe’s place, sitting by the small kitchen table, inches away from where she used her wand to mess with Chloe’s head.

She felt bad that she had taken her wand with her. Couldn’t she just be a normal person for once and not be able to erase someone’s memory for once? No, she couldn’t, she told herself.

“Here, I hope it’s good,” Chloe said, serving Aubrey a slice of pumpkin pie. “I still haven’t had it myself.” And then proceeded to serve herself another slice.

Aubrey took a piece of the pie with her fork and tried to look casual. She complimented the pie after the first bite and Chloe beamed, making the entire place a little more luminous in that Saturday afternoon.

“So, you said you work a lot, what do you work with?” Chloe asked, after what seemed to Aubrey two hours of silence, but she only had time to swallow her second bite.

“I’m a researcher,” she answered. Her neck was beginning to blush, with the thought of the last time Chloe asked her that question. She was glad she had chosen to wear a turtleneck sweater that day.

“Like a scientist?” Chloe added, honest curiosity in her eyes. Aubrey just nodded. “That’s so hot,” the redhead said.

The witch could feel her face burning as she blushed. What kind of charm would she have to use to Chloe to not notice that? She shook the thought away as she looked at the fridge that saw everything that happened that night. But Chloe smirked in a lighthearted way and she just gave her a shy smile.

“What about you? What do you do?” Aubrey asked back.

Chloe gave her the same speech she gave Beca and her in the night she was moving in, but of course she had no idea Aubrey already knew all of that. But she went further this time. She spent the next twenty minutes talking about how her love for animals compelled her to become a veterinarian. Her stories were not even that interesting, it was all about how she told them that made Aubrey hang into every word.

Then that turned into a long conversation about things their works had in common. Aubrey told Chloe how she refused to perform initial tests in animals and Chloe vigorously approved the attitude. Chloe hanged on every world of how Aubrey was studying tangerine leaves and how, one day, it could also be developed to treat animals.

There were sad stories Chloe sahred about animals she had treated. There was this cat who had been in pain for years and everyone thought it was just lazy; a ferret that ate a piece of Lego; a cockatiel that broke its right wing.

With that she told Aubrey how she was familiar with treating birds.

“Chicago told me you had an owl,” she added.

Aubrey frowned. Well, the whole building probably knew that, since the last time Neva came to a visit she was anything but discreet. But normal people have owls sometimes, so she wasn’t really bothered by the fact the people had heard Kate’s little devil.

“She’s not mine,” Aubrey said, sipping the coffee Chloe had served her. (She had forgotten what coffee tasted like without a dose of confidence, that was how she took it every morning.) “I was just taking care of her for a few days for a friend.”

“For Beca?” Chloe asked excitedly, like she was proud of herself for knowing this about Aubrey’s life.

“No, Beca can barely take care of herself.” Aubrey laughed a little, then stopped, then chuckled slightly about how funny it was that she was having a friendly conversation with someone that wasn’t her grumpy, small and loyal friend. “But, who’s Chicago?” she asked, going back to the matter.

Chloe seemed to think for a fraction of second. “This guy I’m kind of seeing,” she giggled, a little unsure. “He lives next door.”

Aubrey knew him. Okay, she had seen him before in the hall or in the elevator. She didn’t have a name to the face neither an opinion of him until that moment, but she just decided she didn’t like his name neither the fact that he was with Chloe.

“Kind of?” she asked, not being able to hold her tongue.

“It’s nothing serious,” Chloe said. “We met the night I moved here. I knocked on his door because I needed a screwdriver and he ended up helping me out.”

Oh no.

Aubrey wanted to curse loudly right there - maybe break a few glasses and fix again with a wave of her wand. Beca and her didn’t thought about the possibility of Chloe’s mind replacing them for someone else in the memory but it was exactly what had happened. She felt extremely sad at the thought that everything they shared that night was attributed to someone in Chloe’s memories now; she felt robbed.

But his memories were alright. It wasn’t possible that the charm had affected him as well. That bastard was lying to Chloe. He was taking credit for her actions. He wasn’t the one that revisited his nightmares of transfigurations lessons to get her that screwdriver. He wasn’t the one who saw how cute Chloe looked that night. He wasn’t the one who saw Beca wanting to help someone. Chicago was wrong in so many levels, Aubrey didn’t even know where to begin with.

“A screwdriver,” Aubrey said insentiently. She was too mad to say anything else.

“He is a nice guy,” Chloe informed her, but she looked way more excited when talking about that poor cockatiel.

Aubrey couldn’t say anything about it. She couldn’t disagree out loud with Chloe.

The evening came to an end too soon after that.

Aubrey wanted to tell Chloe what was happening, but she knew very well she couldn’t. She also wanted to knock on Chicago’s door and punch him on the face, with her own bare hands, no wand. But she also wanted to know how different things would be if she hadn’t messed up with Chloe’s mind that day. Would she be in Chicago’s place now? Possibly no, but she entertained herself with the idea.

She ended up just staying and chatting with her neighbor, trying hard to not look bummed. She could hang on a little more if only that coffee had a dose of peace of mind. Staring at Chloe under the last remains of sun that were entering by the windows had a similar effect, though.

As she said goodbye to Chloe with a promise to do something together again soon, there were two possibilities in her mind: 1) Chloe was poisoning her with large doses of the best Amortentia ever made, or 2) Chloe was just everything she had been looking for in the both worlds.


	4. 43 days

She broke the kiss placing her hands over his chest and pushing him away slightly.

“What is it?” Chicago had a concerned look on his face as his hands stopped against her bare back, inches away from the clasp of her bra.

There was no way she would do it with him in that way again. Doing it once was not okay, doing twice was a mistake. If she went for that one more time she was not sure if she would forgive herself. He didn’t deserve that, it was unfair to be with him when blonde hair and green eyes were all she could see when she closed her eyes.

She wouldn’t go through another night allowing his hands to run through her body while wishing they were warmer. She wouldn’t bury her hands in his hair frustrated that it wasn’t longer. She wouldn’t take off his shirt thinking about how she wanted it to be a turtleneck sweater.

She wouldn’t go through another night wishing he was Aubrey.

“I don’t feel so good,” Chloe said, down casting her eyes. “I’m really tired.” She crossed her arms over her half-naked body, in an out of character moment of self-consciousness. What if his eyes could see through her?

“Sure,” he said, taking a step back. “Do you want me to go?”

Chloe wanted to say no so she wouldn’t hurt him, but she really wanted to be alone. Laying beside him while her mind was on the other side of the hallway didn’t seem any better than having sex with him doing the same thing. Those were two very intimate things to do and she could not handle the fact that having Aubrey on her mind during them felt wrong in so many levels.

“I-“ she started. “Do you mind if we stop this?”

Chicago stood there looking at her like a deer caught in headlights. “No. Not all.”

“It just…I don’t think we should be like this anymore,” she said.

He nodded as if she had told him about the weather.

“I get it,” he said, putting back his shirt. “No problem.”

She accompanied him to the door and said goodbye with a wave of hand. That was the easiest break up of her entire life. Just a sign of how fragile and unworthy was what they had had.

It’s been forty-three days since the first time she saw Aubrey and she knows that since then the blonde has been on her mind constantly. Sometimes she is just in a corner, making herself barely noticed. Sometimes she is talking about tangerine’s leaves and she is never loud but captures Chloe’s attention anyway. Sometimes she is walking by her side when Chloe is walking home from work in the end of the day, with hands in her pockets of that navy-blue coat, with the chilly air making her cheeks pink and blowing against her hair. In other times she devours, consumes, burns brighter than the moonlight and makes impossible to Chloe to do anything else but think about her.

Precious were the moments in which Aubrey was physically with her so she didn’t have to keep imagining. After that evening with the pie and the homemade coffee, she convinced her neighbor to go with her to a coffee shop a few blocks away with the promise of the best hot pumpkin spice in town.

(“How do you know that? You just moved here,” Aubrey asked with a smirk.

“The best until now,” Chloe said.)

Then Aubrey finally agreed to come over to dinner one night. Then to a movie night. Then to a walk in the park. Then back to that coffee shop. Then to a record store with her friend Beca. Then the dinners became more frequent and their hanging outs became longer. Faster than she could notice she was calling Aubrey – and Beca - a friend and her worries about loneliness were long gone.

Chloe has no idea at which point she knew she wanted Aubrey. It’s crazy, but sometimes it feels like she had been wanting Aubrey for more than forty-three days.

Aubrey was a new musical instrument that Chloe was enthusiastically learning to use. She loved the way the words danced in her tongue before saying them out loud, watching them dissipate through the air and hitting Aubrey’s ears, her brain processing the sounds and projecting her reaction to them. She would blush, if the words were too daring; she would roll her eyes, if they were silly; and she would laugh, if Chloe was lucky enough to manage that. Chloe could play Aubrey all day, if possible.

But there was nothing easy about playing that new instrument. Everyday was a challenge and not all effort resulted in something. Aubrey was closed off, shy, and with some boundaries that Chloe had no idea how to break. She would be vague about certain things and tense about others, which would bring back to Chloe’s mind the anxious look she had on their very first encounter at the elevator.

Although, there were times Chloe was sure she was one or two steps away from breaking Aubrey’s tall walls.

There were a few smiles and touches that kept their places in Chloe’s mind as a sign that maybe what she was feeling wasn’t unilateral. Maybe Aubrey wanted her just as much and had no idea of what to do about it. Sometimes she would hug Chloe just a little bit longer than usual. Other times she would tell Chloe stories that were detailed enough to not leave her filling the blanks for herself.

Everything about that woman amazed her. Her posture, her mannerisms, her perfectionist persona. She also loved how serious Aubrey could be but still go for silly remarks when she was around. Like when she would answer to Chloe’s compliment about her hair or her skin with “it’s the magic” and shrug with a smirk. Or when Chloe would tell her about one of the pets she took care of and she would talk about mythological creatures like dragons and hippogriffs. She was the perfect balance between poised and goofy.  

Furthermore, she had stop resisting Chloe’s touches. There weren’t hands avoiding being touched or heads with no shoulder to rest. No more sitting by the couch with space between them or sleepovers in which they wouldn’t end up in the same bed.

Those were the memories that came into her mind as put back her shirt after Chicago left. The proof of how falling for Aubrey was fast and how she wasn’t running from it.

She wanted Aubrey so bad.

But it doesn’t matter how much she wanted Aubrey, she had to wait for her. She had to wait for Aubrey to know if she wanted the same thing, she told herself.

That last step was entirely Aubrey’s to give.

* * *

That’s the reason why she was so, so glad Aubrey had kissed her first.

“I have no idea why you were laughing,” Chloe chided as they left the theater. “Practical Magic is not a movie to laugh about!”

She remembers the way Aubrey bit her bottom lip as they walked side by side. Her hands were shoved in her navy-blue coat’s pockets and her head was hanging low, watching her boots getting one in front of the other and taking her back home. It was Halloween night and Aubrey had this beautiful smile in her face that made Chloe think about how never occurred to her that Aubrey could be the kind of person that likes that holiday. If she could be honest, Aubrey fitted better in the other side of the spectrum.

“That is a laughable witchcraft,” Aubrey said.

Chloe smirked. “And how can a chemical biology researcher have any idea about witches do?”

Aubrey blushed furiously under the street lights. “It’s just a movie. Of course it’s fictional,” she said, keep walking with her head down. “By the way, when you said we were going to watch a Halloween movie I was expecting something more…frightening.”

“Oh no,” Chloe shook her head. “I hate scary movies. If I watch them, I can’t sleep at night. I’m so not volunteering to spend the night alone with those images in my mind. Nicole Kidman as a redhead is way more pleasant.”

“You are way more pleasant,” Aubrey said in a blurt. “I mean, like redheads. If it was a competition. Which is not. I just meant that I like your hair,” she ranted as they took a new street where a group of teenagers was walking a little ahead of them with pointed hats.

She was getting used to Aubrey’s compliments. They were sporadic and usually out of the common sense, but Chloe guessed that’s what she liked the most about it. Not to sound like a brag, but Chloe couldn’t possibly count how many times she had been flattered, and she was sure none of them were like Aubrey’s.

Chloe gave her a smile that said thank you and much more, she hoped. The words weren’t enough, she was sure that if she tried to say them out loud, they would sound weird and never live up to match what she was feeling. Thank you was not enough.

They walked in silence for a while passing stores and pubs with Halloween decoration, pointing to each other if one of the pedestrians’ costumes were remarkable. Chloe pointed out a guy wearing a shark onesie with a blonde wig (“That’s Sharkira!”); Aubrey pointed out to a small woman dressed like a mushroom (“That’s not a mushroom, Aubrey, that’s Toad, from Mario Kart. What do you mean you never played Mario Kart?”); Chloe pointed out a woman and a man wearing colorful and long capes that seemed to shine like the moonlight in the low-light streets. Aubrey frowned at this last one and Chloe couldn’t blame her because she also had no idea what costume that was supposed to be, it was just pretty.

Chloe insisted that they walked through the park, following the teenagers that were walking ahead of them, instead of walking by outside it like they used to do. There were a few picnic rugs on the grass around the pond in which groups of people were eating, drinking and laughing together. Chloe commented how she regretted not having that idea, maybe Beca would’ve accepted (she declined vigorously their invitation to the movies. “Why don’t we go to my therapist talk about my parent’s divorce instead? I think it will be way more fun.”) Aubrey said they could do it next year or any other day.

The teenagers settled their own picnic rug near the pond. The night was clear and there were some pumpkin lanterns hanging on the trees, making the park look warm even if the temperature was as low and she wished she had put on one more pair of socks. She pulled a reluctantly Aubrey to sit down a little bit, finding a piece of lawn that seemed neat enough nearby the pond.

“Don’t steal my heat away,” Aubrey said jokingly as Chloe settled by her side, lacing their arms together and cuddling herself into the blonde’s side, overlapping Aubrey’s crossed legs with her own.

“Too late,” Chloe smirked, nuzzling her cheek against Aubrey’s tall collar.

Her heart faltered a beat when she felt Aubrey intertwin their hands together. She squeezed the oh so warm hand in her and pretended they had the entire night.

The orange lights of the lanterns were reflecting on the river and the closer group of people were listening to Neil Young’s Harvest Moon. She barely could listen to the song, they were still very far and the phone that was playing the song didn’t have good speakers. She was amused, enchanted and thankful when Aubrey started humming along with the song, making the sound reverberate through her body, comfortably hitting Chloe’s ears. She could hear the blonde’s body singing the song because her ear was against her shoulder.

Chloe was a music lover. There wasn’t one Beatles’ album she didn’t have learned the lyrics to her heart and she can’t really think of a music genre that doesn’t has at least one song she is found of, but that was the best sound she had ever heard.

She turned her head, so her chin was resting on Aubrey’s shoulder. She stared at the side of her face as she looked at the pond, with eyes dark because of the low light. The mental effort she had to make to remember to breathe was inhumane when Aubrey turned her head in her direction, meeting her eyes. Their noses bumped slightly and if she hadn’t been so decided to let Aubrey lead whatever they were doing, she would’ve had crashed their lips together at the very moment.

Aubrey just stared at her with her eyes growing soft and her eyelids falling slowly. She watched Aubrey watching her for what seemed to be an eternity and she would watch for two more eternities. She tightened her hold of Aubrey’s hand, not knowing if she wanted reassurance for herself or for the other woman. When she felt Aubrey’s warm hand cupping her cheek she thought she was going to cry.

She didn’t have the time to, though. Half eternity after that, Aubrey’s lips covered hers, and felt like they were combusting right there, in the middle of that cold Halloween night.

* * *

She was surprised to realize that things hadn’t really changed at all after that kiss. Aside from all the other kisses that now filled goodbyes, hellos and all those quiet nights by the couch, they were still the same.

It was like that kiss was just a much-needed confirmation to make sure they both knew what was going on. In Chloe’s mind that kiss was like saying I’m falling for you and I need to know if you are aware of that. Oh, you are? Good.

All the other kisses were a way of saying she wasn’t giving up. That she wasn’t taking a step back. That she was crawling deeper and deeper into the shell Aubrey had built for herself. All the other kisses were the proof that she was not regretting any of that.

She hoped Aubrey knew that.

* * *

They had been dating for four months when Aubrey knocked on her door one morning. It was barely six and they were both still in their sleeping clothes. Chloe knew in what Aubrey slept; she was proud of that.

For a second, she thought she just wanted a nice chat before going to work. Chloe didn’t know exactly what was, but she knew there was something important about Aubrey’s research today. She was already fancying herself with the thought that Aubrey was searching for her to ease her anxiety before something so important to her, but her mind went blank when she looked down. Aubrey was holding a tiny white owl in her long hands.

“This is Neva,” Aubrey had a worried look in her face. “She’s not flying, neither eating. I think she broke a wing.” She looked down at the bird and frowned. “Can you help her?”

The redhead allowed Aubrey in and told her to put Neva in the kitchen island. Aubrey started wriggling her hands as soon as Neva was on the surface. Chloe was careful approaching the fluffy thing, not wanting to upset her more than she already was. With a quick examination she noticed the owl really had a broken wing.

“Her wing is really broken,” Chloe informed her Aubrey. “I can take her to the clinic with me today and make sure she will be fine. I can’t help much here.”

Aubrey stepped back nodding hesitantly. “I’d go with you, but I have to present the final essay about the tangerine leaves to my superior today. Did you ever treat owls before?”

She wasn’t sure if Aubrey was just worried about the owl or if she was doubting her abilities. Chloe decide to assure her that Neva would be fine, she just wanted the blonde to relax: she wasn’t in need of any more anxiety.

“I treated birds before. She will be fine,” Chloe said, nudging softly Neva’s head.

How did that owl got there between the time she left Aubrey’s apartment after dinner and that morning? How did that little thing break her wing? She eyed Aubrey as if the words would be written over her soft blue pajama pants and old university sweatshirt. Did Aubrey received someone after she left? Where did that animal came from?

“Sure. I trust you,” Aubrey said, and Chloe couldn’t tell if she was talking to her or to herself.

Aubrey kissed Chloe’s temple and gave a last worried look at Neva before leaving without any other information about the owl.

* * *

Neva was not a normal bird. Period.

“How did your wing fix that fast?” Chloe asked Neva, by the end of the day.

She took care of Neva as she took care of any other bird as a veterinarian. She supposed she would return her to Aubrey that evening with recommendations about being patient, giving her the medicine and calling Chloe if anything went wrong. This all turned out to be unnecessary when she entered the room where the petiants (pet + patients, for short) stayed to find Neva vividly exploring the cage she was in. There wasn’t a trace of sickness or brokenness in that owl anymore. It was like weeks had passed or if her injury had never even happened.

“Neva, tell me your secret,” Chloe said playfully to the owl.

“What are you doing?”

Chloe turned her head to see Aubrey standing by the door. She was wearing the navy-blue coat Chloe loved and looked a little amused with the scene she had found. “Dr. Roberts allowed me in,” she explained. “Anyway, you were talking to an owl.”

“This owl is a miracle.” Chloe said. “I treated her like any other bird and look at her now,” she pointed to Neva, that was suddenly aware of Aubrey’s presence now and came closer to the front of the cage. “It’s like she was never hurt.”

Aubrey approached them and sat by the chair beside Chloe, dropping her bag on the floor and throwing an arm around Chloe’s shoulders.

“Maybe she is a magical owl,” Aubrey said without looking at Chloe and offering her finger to the owl through the bars of the cage.

Chloe laughed and rolled her eyes, leaning in and pecking Aubrey’s lips, pretending to not notice her blush. “You’re so cute,” she said and got up from the chair. “I’m discharging her, so we can take her home now.” She started filling the papers. “When are you taking her to her owner? Do they know what happened?”

She could swear she saw Aubrey gulping at the questions. “Tomorrow. They’ll be back in town and I’ll take her there and explain everything. I didn’t want to worry them.”

“Sure,” Chloe murmured. “How that happened anyway? She wasn’t there last night.”

Now she was sure Aubrey had hesitated before answering. “They brought her soon after you left. I was alone with her when she flew away from the cage and collided against the door. You see, she is energic.”

Chloe eyed the little fluffy thing still in the cage. She did realize Neva wasn’t the best with her motor coordination, but the story was still odd. Of course, she wasn’t thinking Aubrey would hurt a little animal, that was out of the table, she actually had no idea what she was thinking.

And it occurred like lighting up a match in a dark room. That was the moment when she noticed there was something still unnoticed by her about Aubrey.

* * *

How could she, in all that journey dedicated to learning, understanding and loving Aubrey to the fullest, had let something scape? Wasn’t she paying enough attention? Was she paying attention to all the wrong things?

Something had turned on inside her, like a flame aiming to illuminate doubts. She promised herself she would wait for Aubrey, that she would respect her time, that she would dance in her rhythm. Things were working just fine, and she didn’t want to ruin it. But her new doubt had put her into a state of impatient that she wasn’t sure how to deal with herself.

“You know you can trust me, right?” Chloe asked Aubrey out of nowhere one day when they were sitting by Aubrey’s couch, the redhead’s legs over hers. She watched as Aubrey leaned over her coffee table, picking up a red knife and cutting a piece of cheese in the plate.

Neva was already gone, and Aubrey said she was safe with her owner now. They were alone with cheese and wine and no place on Earth could be better than that one for Chloe.

Aubrey stared at her for two long seconds in which Chloe felt the air getting thick only to have the atmosphere broken by the blonde’s soothing voice. “I know. I trust you.”

“Good, because I trust you too,” Chloe said, wishing she hadn’t noticed Aubrey’s body stiffing under hers.

The blonde smiled at her, patted her knee and did something Chloe had no words to explain how much she loved: she leaned forward and kissed Chloe’s forehead.

If she wasn’t sitting, she was sure her knees would betray her. The love she had developed for Aubrey was a flame bigger than her doubts, that burned in that moment to the point in which she couldn’t feel anything else but it. Every time Aubrey would show any sign that she liked Chloe, that she was not going to push her away or throw all the redhead felt about her in the trash, was the moment she felt like there were anywhere else she had to be but by her side.

Once again, she couldn’t push her curiosity any more far. She had to wait for Aubrey to come around. She had nothing but faith that she would do it again, like she had been doing for months.

* * *

“Here,” Chicago said, giving Chloe the screwdriver.

Chloe frowned at the sight of the object. If she was honest, she had no idea why he appeared out of nowhere months after she told him they should stop seeing each other in that way. She didn’t tell him she was with Aubrey, but he didn’t ask anything either. She doesn’t think he really minded the reason why she as doing it. She couldn’t help but feel confused when he appeared at her door, after all, she thought they would eventually forget each other existences,

“It’s yours,” she said, not understanding the devolution.

He shook his head with a guilty frown. “It never was.”

The redhead’s frown came back, this time deeper. “You lent me it-“

“-I didn’t,” He said, firmly.

Wait, what? Chloe shifted on her feet. Was that boy drugged?

“You came in the morning and you were so pretty, I just played along,” he said, and Chloe wanted to ask him which drugs he was in and tell him to seek for help.

“I have no idea what you are saying,” Chloe said slowly.

Chicago almost smirked, but seemed to control himself, deciding it wasn’t the situation. “I was not the person who helped you move in.”

“Are you on drugs?” Chloe asked him, not containing herself anymore. He did look a little agitated.

“What? No! Are you?” He asked back. “You were the one who thinks I helped you that night. I was not even at home.”

Chloe scrunched up her face at the nonsense. Okay, Chicago was different in her memory, but she was sure it was him. He may have been shyer and have had a different posture, but it was him. She hadn’t smoked weed since her junior year and she loved her body too much to go to any heavier drugs. She shook her head thinking about how nothing of that made sense.

“But I remember you. You helped me move the boxes in and mount the bed. You even cleaned the windows,” Chloe recited her memories. But at the same time she went further with it, less sense they seemed to make.

Was her mind betraying her? Was she lying to herself? Was she descending into madness? She wondered. She scanned his face again and compared to her memories. It was the same person, she was not mistaken. But as he raised a brow, she was sure they couldn’t be the same person. Oh God, she thought, do I need a psychiatrist?

“Chloe, I’m really sorry,” he said, leaning down to look in her eyes. “But it wasn’t me.”

She looked in his eyes and knew he was right. Those weren’t the eyes in her memories even if that was what her mind was telling her, she could feel it in her guts. He was not that person even though her memories insisted with that idea.

She looked at the screwdriver in her hand. And she noticed for the first time: could she really call that a screwdriver? It was shaped differently and seemed to barely bear the fact that it was a real object. She touched the red handle as if bullying it to reveal itself to be something else, as if telling it she knew it was part of that trick her mind was pulling on her.

“Why are you telling me this only now?” Chloe asked.

He sighed. “It was time to,” he said, not looking into her eyes.

“That’s all you have to say?”

“Yes,” he said, still not looking into her eyes.

Chloe wasn’t mad. She was confused and lost, but not mad. She wanted to scream but to herself, in hope that maybe some clearance would appear in her mind, but the more she thought about it, more her memories became blurry and vague. She knew what had happened, but the image of Chicago was just a deformed shape now.

She said goodbye to him, with a messed mind and a weird feeling about the tool on her hand. What in goddamn hell was happening?


	5. clean

“I have a girlfriend, but she has no idea I’m a witch,” Beca recited as she typed in her laptop.

Aubrey glared at her from the armchair she was siting in with an article open in her lap.

“Sorry, I don’t think none of these will help you. Google can be so useless sometimes. Maybe I should ask on Yahoo Answers?” Beca said, her eyes scanning the screen.

Aubrey gave her a second glare.

“Come on, you can’t keep ignoring that situation,” Beca pushed,

“I can, and I will,” Aubrey said, picking up the article and resuming her reading. She was glad that that was enough to make Beca drop the matter and leave her alone with her thoughts and that much-needed reading. She watched as her friend’s attention went back to the laptop, putting her headphones back on.

“My grandfather died before my grandma could tell him about her being a witch. He fell from the roof when my mom was a toddler,” Beca said after minutes of silence.

Aubrey sighed. “Chloe is not dying,” she grunted without putting the article down. “And we don’t even have access to our roof.”

Beca took of her headphones. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

The witch rolled her eyes. “Chloe and I are fine. I’m not going to ruin it.”

“You love being a witch,” Beca said, pushing the laptop aside. (It was still a mystery to Aubrey why Beca loved to work in her place so much.)

Yes, that was true. But Aubrey was so scared, she had so much to lose this time.

Aubrey learned to allow herself to love Chloe. That’s what she told herself, at least. But the truth is that she couldn’t hold it back anymore not even if she wanted to.

The thought of losing Chloe made her want to ask someone to obliviate her own memories. There was no way she could go ahead knowing that she could feel all the love for someone and not be able to act on it. If Chloe left her, she would run to Katie and beg her for a memory charm. Only something that powerful could make her forget about the beautiful experience of loving and being loved by Chloe.

So, what if Chloe couldn’t understand who she was? Aubrey was always proud of her powers. She remembers standing for herself in front of her father for the first time when she was eleven and got invited to study in Ilvermorny. (Mr. Posen wasn’t amused, of course, but he told her he admired the fact that she was fighting for the right of being herself – of course he was also relieved that she would also learn how to control her magic and stop eventually destroying windows and creating accidental fires when she was angry.) She could never be ashamed of who she was.

“I love being a witch, but I love Chloe too.”

“And that’s the reason why you can’t hide it for forever,” Beca said. “It’s not fair.”

Chloe was the reason Aubrey had been extra careful with concealing charms for certain objects in her apartment. The broom really looked like a normal broom at Chloe’s eyes. The books assumed common titles to her. The weird objects in the kitchen’s drawers went to the back of her closet in a box. Her heart was also out of place, resting on Chloe’s hands.

She didn’t say anything after that. It wasn’t the first time Beca and she had that conversation and she was sure it wouldn’t be the last. Chloe had enchanted Beca in some way too, and she was sure Beca would poison her if she did Chloe wrong.

“So…do you have a login in Yahoo Answers? Can I use it?” Beca asked half hour of silence later and ended up being hit by a flying scientific article.

That was not the first neither would be the last time they discussed that matter.

* * *

A loud thump on her bedroom window woke her up in the morning of the final presentation of her research. Morning was a euphemism: the sun was still at least half an hour away from appearing in the horizon and she was counting on at least one more hour of sleep.

Aubrey raised her head and looked in the direction of the noise, only to find the darkness typical of the late morning. She was about to dismiss it as her imagination when she saw a fluffy ball crashing against the window again.

Neva.

She ran to open her window and let the owl – that clearly had no sense of time or what a glass was – in. The cold air made her shiver as she leaned in to look for Neva, that was flying in circles a few meters above her window.

“Neva!” Aubrey called in a hushed tone. She didn’t need her neighbors to know that the terror of owl was back.

The owl flew energetically as she heard her name. She jumped in the air and flew in Aubrey’s direction with high velocity, making the witch afraid she would crash against her. In a fast response, - a result of all her quidditch years - Aubrey lowered her head, covering it with her hands as she bent her knees and lowered herself to the floor. As expected, Neva flew right through over her head. A new loud thump was heard. Aubrey turned her head in the owl’s direction only to find the small thing on the ground.

She ran to Neva and kneeled by her side. The owl was laying on the ground with one of her wings twisted in an angle that Aubrey needed no medical instruction to know it was wrong. She picked up the letter from her beak and put it aside: Katie could wait, whatever it was. She ran a finger through Neva’s head and the owl chirped miserably.

Neva was a disaster. Her mere existence was a threat not only for windows and heads, but to herself. Aubrey thought about suggesting Katie to retire the poor thing, but that would mean never seeing her again. She would never say it out loud, but Neva and her poor delivery, landing and flying skills were almost endearing. During her trips to Aubrey’s during all those years she had broken two clocks, five portraits, one vase, a toaster and four lamps. A broken wing, though, was new even for her standards.

Aubrey picked up her wand on her nightstand ready to try to fix it on her own. But soon she dropped the wand on to the ground. It was too risky and, again, she had no medical instruction. She thought about giving the owl a potion to repair her bones but that was too painful, took too long to get done and she had no idea how she would make the animal drink it.

“This is going to hurt, please don’t bite me,” Aubrey said to the owl as she picked her up carefully in her hands and walked to the kitchen.

She rested Neva on the kitchen island and walked around it. Could an owl die from a broken wing? Well, Neva for sure wasn’t dead, she was just in pain, her small chirps were the proof of that. Poor thing. If only someone could help Neva.

Were magical owls any different from normal owls? If not, maybe Chloe could help. Or what if they were really different and Chloe realized that somehow and discovered Aubrey was a witch? Aubrey grunted in frustration. She shouldn’t take Neva to Chloe, that would be suspicious even if the redhead knew she had had an owl there before. Chloe was there last night and there was no owl around, from where she would think Neva came from?

Aubrey spent the next hour trying to give Neva an analgesic to ease her pain. Neva didn’t take it, not even when Aubrey wrapped it with a slice of ham. When she tried to put Neva upright and the owl almost bit her hand, she decided only Chloe could help them.

She took the owl and her hands and walked to Chloe’s apartment, making a mental note to buy Katie an iPhone.

* * *

“I heard you’ve been fooling around with a pretty girl, Neva,” Beca said to the owl that night while Aubrey finished writing her letter to Katie. “Did you tell her that you are better than UPS?”

Aubrey rolled her eyes at the one-sided conversation happening across the room. Neva and her fast cure were a disaster, just like every other thing the owl does. She had no idea if there were answers for what happened in the owl’s body in any of Chloe’s veterinarian books.

“I told her Neva was a magical owl,” Aubrey told Beca.

Beca shot her head up in her direction. “You did what?! Oh my God, what did she say?”

“She did what any other normal person would,” the blonde said resting the last dot on the letter. “She laughed. And said I was cute.”

“Any normal person? No one else would call you cute, Bree, let’s be honest,” Beca laughed as Aubrey shot her a glare with the mention of the nickname given to her by Chloe. “She thought you were kidding. You must be serious with her.”

Aubrey looked at her friend. Each passing day was getting harder to hide from Chloe. All she wanted was to be as open and free as Chloe was being with her. She wanted to share her stories without changing small facts; she wanted to tell her how she felt in her first broom flight; she wanted to let Chloe know her, for real.

While this secret was being kept, that wouldn’t be possible. There was no Aubrey without magic. Chloe knew just half of her and that wasn’t fair. How someone that has your entire heart can be given only half of you?

Beca brought Neva to her and she put the letter on her beak and opened the room’s window for her to leave, leaning in and watching the owl fly away in her dizzy trajectory. She felt Beca’s arm against hers as the woman imitated her position.

There were so many things Chloe would love about magic. She would love to go near anywhere apparetating; the thrill of a quidditch game; the sweets that Aubrey always thought were silly; the wizard’s tales; the story of the boy who survived and his friends. She wanted to share all of that with Chloe so bad.

It came as a realization. Like the first breathe after a long time underwater.

“I really can’t do this anymore,” Aubrey mumbled.

Beca turned to her and gave her a thoughtful look. For once, she had come around to the point before Aubrey. She tried hard to not yell I told you so. She took a long breath and asked her friend. “What’s the plan?”

* * *

“You little piece of shit!” Beca yelled at Chicago when he opened the door.

The man seemed scared for one fraction of second before he noticed the size of the woman standing in front of him. His eyes assumed a confused expression. “Do I know you?”

“Thank God no,” she said, with her voice lower. “But I know what you did.”

He looked around as if waiting for a camera to be hidden somewhere. Chicago only saw the empty hallway. “Can you be any more specific?”

Beca stomped her feet. “I know you lied to Chloe,” she said. She watched as a frown appeared on his face. “About the screwdriver. I was there. It was not yours.”

He shifted on his feet not really looking bothered, just mildly bored by being involved in this. “Was it yours?”

“Hum, yes.”

“Okay, let me fetch it for you,” he said as if he hadn’t heard or cared about lying to Chloe.

He went into his place to look for the tool before Beca could say anything else to him. He had to go through a few drawers to find it and the brunette kept sticking her neck up to keep an eye on him.

When he came back, the woman had company. Aubrey, the neighbor Chloe couldn’t stop talk about, was there. And she had a stick on her hand.

“In,” the blonde said, pointing the stick to his chest. “We are going to talk. I will give you a few steps to follow and you are going to obey. Are we clear?”

He chuckled. “Or what? Are you going to put this up my nose?”

Aubrey sighed and pointed her wand to his left foot. A white light left the point of the wand and the man jumped back in pain, cursing one or two bad words.

“Are we clear?” she asked again, and he nodded, looking distraught much to Aubrey's delight. “Good. Beca, close the door behind you, please.”

* * *

“Tell me what you just did.”

Chicago stood by the closed door and gave the blonde woman a nervous woman before he started talking. “I told her it wasn’t me.”

Aubrey almost grinned at the fear in his posture. “Did she have questions?”

“Yes,” he said. “But I avoided them, as you told me to.”

“Such a well-behaved boy.” Beca grinned from her place on his kitchen island.

Aubrey gave her a smirk before turning to him. “You didn’t mention us to her, right? Or any of this?” She took a step in his direction, wand wielded.

He frowned slightly as he noticed the object in her hands. “No. I was straight to the point.”

The blonde nodded. Abusing of her magic was very out of character to her and she really wished the situation would be over soon. That guy was a prick, but not even he deserved go through that stress. She was pretty sure he understood the things she could to him - after setting a magazine on fire to prove her point, he knew how powerless he was in that situation.

“Good. I’m glad you didn’t try to run. Because you wouldn’t go far,” Aubrey teased. She hated it, but deeply, it was also a little bit funny to see the way his spine tensed up with every threat.

Beca crackled up and came closer to them as Aubrey approached the boy.

“Thank you, Chicago,” Aubrey said, sincerely. “It was nice meeting you. It’s a shame that you won’t remember any of this.”

They laid the sleepy guy on his couch after with Beca complaining about his weight. They left the apartment as discreetly as possible and ran to Aubrey’s.

“Well, it’s all on you now,” Beca said to her friend. “Go get your girl.”

Aubrey smiled at her friend and put her hand on the doorknob. But in the last moment she turned to Beca and hugged her tightly.

She closed the door behind her wishing she had a dose of Felix Felicis on her system.

As soon as Chloe opens her door, she asks:

“Can we talk?”


	6. faith

Chloe avoided Aubrey for two weeks after that day.

For the first week she was just trying to find out what she was feeling. For the second one she was coming to terms with the idea that there wasn’t a word, a film, or a book to guide her through that situation.

She knew she couldn’t see Aubrey. Seeing her would just blurry her mind, make her forget push away her own considerations and thoughts about the discovery. That time was necessary for the sakes of their relationship.

She started going to the clinic way earlier in order to not meet Aubrey in the elevator and return much later for the same reason. She had to find a new coffee shop because she had presented her favorite to Aubrey and could not stand in line next to her in that moment. She would always walk through the park because she knew Aubrey wouldn’t.

This only made her realize how much space the blonde came to occupy in her life, in her thoughts, even if she was offering her only half of herself for all that time.

Aubrey was a witch. She had powers. She was magical in more ways than Chloe could understand.

Until now, she knew her girlfriend could turn knifes into screwdrivers, cure colds, vanish memories, have an owl as mailman and serve coffee and tea with feelings. What else could she do? Chloe would be lying if she said she wasn’t a little bit afraid of all the unknown power. She had vanished her memories once, she could do it again, right?

She knew her ignorance about Aubrey’s condition was the origin of all those fears and she knew Aubrey would gladly change that.

Yet, she needed time.

Time to deal. Time to process. Time to be without Aubrey.

She felt like she hadn’t been without Aubrey since the day she moved there, and now that her memories from that night were back, she was sure about that.

And Chloe had two opinions about the way they began.

By one side, she felt lied to, fooled. She hated what Aubrey did even if she understood the reason behind. She hated how that was the thing that put her in Chicago’s direction, even if she was aware that she consented into every single action that led her there. She hated that that was their beginning.

But by the other side, she enjoyed one thing: knowing she loved Aubrey since the very first moment.

* * *

 

“You don’t have a pet. What are you doing here?” Chloe asked her, pausing filling an admission form.

“I do have a pet,” Beca said, resting her hands against the counter as the glass door of the clinic closed behind her with a soft click. “Her name is Aubrey but I’m not sure about her species.”

Chloe almost laughed but limited herself to a smirk. The mention of Aubrey’s name stung a little.

Oh, Beca. Sweet Beca. She hadn’t been avoiding her too, but avoiding Aubrey had its collateral damages and this was one of them. She was fond of the girl and not only because she was her girlfriend’s best friend. She was pretty sure that in any other universe Beca would catch her attention in a way or another.

“I’m not here to convince you to talk to my dumbass friend,” Beca told her.

“Then you are here to a consult to yourself?” Chloe raised a brow.

“Ha ha, very funny, Dr. Beale,” Beca said. She frowned as she noticed the lizard in the aquarium behind Chloe.

The redhead smiled fondly at Beca even if she could see her intentions going there. Seeing the small woman just reminded her how much she missed Aubrey and all the wonderful changes she brought into her life.

“Can I talk to you?” Beca asked, softly.

“Of course,” Chloe said. She turned to the intern that was cleaning a cage on the other side of the room. “Zoe, can you take over here? I’m taking this one inside.” She picked up the aquarium.

“Oh, I thought you were talking about me,” Beca said.

Chloe turned to her with a stare as she reached the door that led to the other room. She laughed as Beca gave her a comical look.

“Oh, you are talking about me.” Beca followed the woman through the door.

Chloe put the lizard on the examination table as they entered the room. “So, you’re sure you’re not here for a consult, neither to convince me to talk to my girlfriend. This is your last chance, Mitchell.”

It felt good to say that title referring to Aubrey. To remind herself that it was still true, that that word and that person that had brought her joy for last months still made sense.

“It’s a relief to hear you are still calling her by that,” Beca said, looking at her feet and missing the sad look in Chloe’s face. “But yes, I’m not here to do any of that. I’m here to tell you about my life.”

Chloe frowned, putting her latex gloves on. “Are you sure you don’t need that consult?”

“Are you changing careers? Veterinarian to comedian, really?” Beca asked rhetorically, giving the lizard a repulsive look. “And you are not doing anything gross to that poor thing while I’m standing right here, right?” She pointed to the lizard.

Chloe couldn’t tell what Beca was saying by gross things. Yes, she was going to examine it, but by the sheer horror in her friend’s face she decided to not. She took off the clean rubber gloves and offered Beca a stool to sit.

“Okay. Then tell me about your life. I’m all ears.” Chloe sat herself in another stool as Beca sat on hers.

“My grandmother was a witch,” Beca said without taking long and Chloe wished she didn’t use that word.

They both looked at the door, suddenly afraid that anyone else could listen to that conversation.

Chloe had been avoiding the term since that day with Aubrey in her kitchen. Her girlfriend was one, she knew that, but what was a witch? She had so many questions that the blonde offered to answer but at the same time she was sure she was not going to give her the explanations she needed. Also, how could she ask certain things without being insensible or acting like a jerk? (Did they really have brooms? She remembers seeing one at Aubrey’s place once.)

Wait, was Beca a witch herself? At this point Chloe thought everything was possible.

“I’m not one,” Beca quickly said, as if she read Chloe’s mind. “I spent my life wishing I was, though. It’s so cool. All the powers and potions and big old schools. It’s fascinating,” she said with a smile. “The wizarding world was a place where I always felt way safer. If I had a bad day at school, if the other kids were too mean, or any other problem thirteen-year-olds usually have she would just take me to a cramped alley nearby home. It looked really dirty but the magical part of it was out of this world. There were small restaurants, bookshops and other stuff. She would buy me this ice cream that tasted like happiness. For real, that’s the flavor,” she chuckled at the thought and Chloe laughed too, a little surprised.

“No one ever looked twice at me when I was there,” she said, looking at her feet. “It was awesome. Everyone was too weird, eccentric, to stare at the elf looking child. It made feel like I belonged somewhere,” she looked at the lizard. “I never went there again after she died. I couldn’t bring myself to,” she looked back at Chloe. “Until I met Aubrey.

“She took me to this weird bookshop nearby our campus that I had never noticed and suddenly we were in this wizard district. I missed that atmosphere so much. It made me feel…close to my grandmother,” Chloe noticed the soft smile in her face and imitated it. “We had happiness ice cream. I don’t think I’ve had tasted that for a while back then.”

Chloe took her hand. There was a strength, an emotion in Beca’s words that was slightly endearing. She thought that, maybe, she understood what she was saying about her grandmother, because at that moment she felt closer to Beca herself.

“I really didn’t come here to make you talk to her. I know you have your reasons,” Beca said after a while, staring at Chloe’s fingers as the toyed with them. “But I came here to tell you that it may be a scary thought, or an unusual one, and that all it requires is a leap of faith. To trust them, to learn about them, to accept them, to..love them. It only takes a leap of faith.”

“Like falling in love,” Chloe said, also looking at their intertwined fingers.

Beca was silent for a few seconds. She squeezed Chloe’s hand in her. “But that one you already took, right?”

The redhead looked at her and smiled. Yes, she did.

Beca smiled back. She looked at the aquarium one more time and one corner of her mouth lifted. “Do you think he heard all of this? The no-maj world is not ready to know.”

Chloe laughed, patting her friend’s hand. “Yeah he did, but I’m sure he won’t tell a soul.”

* * *

 

“Chloe,” the word left Aubrey’s mouth like piano chord. It was tense turning hopeful in the last letter.

“Hi,” Chloe said and smiled at her girlfriend. “Can I come in?”

It took one or two seconds for Aubrey to answer. “Sure,” she said.

Chloe entered the apartment. Something was different about that place. She had been there uncountable times, she could tell the exact color of the wall and the position of the books. But there was still something. Something she had never noticed before. Or something she was not able to see. It was as if the place was suddenly more Aubrey, as if it finally made sense.

The place looked magical now, too.

She looked at the titles of the books and realized that she never noticed that they were very uncommon. She wondered what else she couldn’t see before.

“Beca came to the clinic today…” Chloe said, turning away from the bookshelf and walking around the living room.

“Oh my God, I told her to not do that. I’m sorry,” Aubrey said with a frown.

Chloe could see how her hands were laying against her side, palms touching her jeans. She was nervous. Maybe she was aware of how much Chloe could see from her place now. Maybe she allowed Chloe to see all of that. To Chloe, standing there felt so intimate. It was like seeing Aubrey undressing in front of her again for the first time.

“It’s fine. Really. She was clear about not trying to make me talk to my dumbass girlfriend,” Chloe said and smirked.

Aubrey sighed and laughed, and Chloe just wanted to keep making her do it. There was a slight blush on her cheeks that contrasted against her deep blue top. Also, her face was washed with a relief that Chloe knew had to do with the last word that left her lips. Girlfriend.

“I’m sorry for disappearing,” Chloe said, approaching Aubrey.

“It’s okay. I threw a lot of information on you,” the blonde said, taking a step closer too.

“Some unexpected, odd and unusual information I must say.”

Aubrey nodded. “I know.” She looked at her socked feet. “I’m sorry.”

Chloe’s heart shattered in that moment. She couldn’t let Aubrey feel sorry for that, she did nothing wrong. A wave of guilty ran through her body as she analyzed those two weeks through Aubrey’s eyes. They felt like rejection. She never wanted her to feel like that. She had to push aside her doubts and take that leap of faith.

“Don’t be sorry for being yourself,” Chloe said, taking Aubrey’s hand in hers.

Aubrey’s head shot up and their eyes met. She looked at their joined hands. She squeezed the redhead’s hands in hers and looked back at her.

“I love you,” Chloe said.

Physically, she was standing in Aubrey’s living room. Mentally, she had just jumped out of a trampoline, hoping that Aubrey and her crazy magic could pick her before she crashed into the ground.

“Even now?”

“Especially now.” Chloe threw her arms around Aubrey. “Now that I know all of you.”

Aubrey hugged her back, resting her chin against Chloe’s shoulder. “I love you too.”

The way Aubrey held her said one thing: she wouldn’t let Chloe hit the ground.

They held each other just a little tighter than usual and a little longer than expected. They had a lot to figure it out, but they just stood there in each other arms.

They had time, space, love and magic on their side. They would be alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for reading and commenting. it means a lot to me.  
> I hope I see you guys soon.


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